Jim Murphy: My hon. Friend says that I might not get to the other side. I shall certainly get into his constituency, but I may not get out of it.
	The important point that my hon. Friend makes, however, is about the devolution arrangements throughout the United Kingdom. The Calman commission is about strengthening the Scottish Parliament, but it is also very clear about strengthening the United Kingdom. I believe in the United Kingdom and think that the United Kingdom—the four nations of the UK—is the most successful gathering of nations anywhere in the world. Additional work needs to be done on constitutional renewal throughout the UK, and I look forward to my hon. Friend participating in those endeavours.

Tom Clarke: Mr. Speaker, may I join with those who pay tribute to you in saying that I am extremely grateful for your many acts of kindness to me, which began when I made my maiden speech from the back row of the Opposition Benches?
	Will my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State confirm that allocations to local authorities will still be made by the devolved Executive in Holyrood, and that they remain twice the amount that they were 10 years ago, and very much more than when I was president of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities?

David Cameron: Welcome to Prime Minister's planted questions!  [Interruption.] Some Labour MPs were a bit confused: when they were told about Mr. Ten Percent, they thought it meant his opinion poll ratings.
	In our exchanges last week, the Prime Minister read out figures for total Government spending after 2011. Will he agree that, using the Treasury's own forecasts for inflation, those figures mean that spending is going to be cut in real terms?

David Cameron: Absolutely no answer to the question. For the time that Peter Mandelson allows the Prime Minister to go on doing the job, he should at least answer the question. Every year, at every Budget, the Prime Minister stood there and read out figure after figure for total spending and told us it was an increase in real terms. Now he stands there, reading out figures for total spending, without admitting that they represent a real-terms cut. The country will conclude that he is taking them for fools. Everyone knows that what matters is spending over and above inflation. Let me ask him again: will he now accept that his spending plans from 2011 mean a real-terms cut? The Chancellor says that they are a cut. Are they?

Gordon Brown: The right hon. Gentleman is learning all the time. At last he has a European policy, and he now admits that there is a European recession. As far as his last comments are concerned, is it not remarkable that he descends back into personalities? He cannot deal with a policy debate. I have said that we are taking action to deal with the recession, and that means that more people will be in work, that more businesses will be saved and that more help will be given to mortgage holders. We are spending money to take people out of recession; he would cut the money now. There would be more unemployment, more debt and more deficit. The Conservative party has to face up to its responsibility. The Conservatives are calling for public spending cuts at a time when every country in Europe and the rest of the world knows that we have to inject more money into the economy.
	As for the future, everybody also knows—this is where the serious debate lies—that what can happen depends on growth and what happens to inflation, employment and interest rates. There is good evidence that the proposals that we have put forward are working, whereas the proposals that the Conservatives have put forward would not work. As for the future of public expenditure, let us just be clear: I have read out figures showing that there are not only cash rises in all our current expenditure in each year, but also real-terms rises. The Leader of the Opposition has given us no figure, except the figure of his Health Secretary, which is a 10 per cent. cut in public expenditure. The public will remember one thing about the last week: 10 per cent. cuts in public expenditure under the Tories; investment under Labour. They are the party of the few; we are the party of the many.

Joan Walley: May I thank you personally for your kindness, Mr. Speaker?On policy, let me say to my right hon. Friend that my constituents are nervously awaiting the outcome of the Learning and Skills Council's review of the Building Colleges for the Future programme? We need that money. Will he give some reassurance that when the review takes place our Government will make an immediate decision, and that he will take account of our commitment to urban regeneration in Burslem and to the university quarter so that the full amounts can be provided for the campuses in Cauldon and on the Burslem site?

Peter Lilley: I beg to move,
	That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide for the suspension or restriction of programming of Bills when the House of Commons is scheduled to meet for fewer than a prescribed number of days in any specified period; and for connected purposes.
	The only possible justification for guillotining debate and preventing thorough scrutiny of legislation by this House is a shortage of parliamentary time. The Government have decided that Parliament will sit for fewer days this year than in any year since 1945, but they are still using powers, once reserved for exceptional cases, to restrict the time available for debate on every Bill. As a result, large swathes of legislation leave this place without ever having been scrutinised at all. My Bill will mean that in future no Government could restrict the time available for debate on Bills if Parliament is scheduled to sit for fewer days than the average of recent years, for example. That will set Parliament free to do what it is supposed to do: scrutinise legislation thoroughly and hold the Government to account.
	I regularly invite everyone on the electoral register in a cluster of streets in my constituency to visit Parliament, and they come in their hundreds. One question that they often ask is, "Isn't Parliament just a talking shop and a waste of time?". They are right that it is a talking shop—the word "Parliament" comes from the French word "parler", which means "to talk"; that is what we do—but they are wrong to say that it is a waste of time. There are only two ways to govern a country. One is when the Government say, "These are the laws, obey them. These are the taxes, pay them. You have got no say in the matter." The second way, which we have developed in this place over 1,000 years, is by having a system whereby no law may be introduced and no tax imposed until it has been discussed and debated in this House and a majority of the representatives of the British people have given it their assent. That is what this place is for: to debate and discuss exhaustively whether each Bill is right in principle and whether it will work in practice, in the light of all the submissions we receive from our constituents and others affected by it.
	That process takes time, so the idea of curtailing debate has always been alien to this House; it is an alien thing, given an alien name—the guillotine—that was introduced when Parliament accepted the need, in extremis, to put a time limit on debate. The guillotine has since been invoked very sparingly; the previous Conservative Government guillotined only between four and five Bills every year. This Government decided early on that all Bills should be guillotined, and that was renamed "programming" in new Labour newspeak. Programming was supposed to ensure that every Bill would receive full consideration, but that has not happened.
	All too many Bills leave this House with sizeable chunks never debated in Committee and with grotesquely inadequate consideration by the whole House on Report. In the case of three quarters of Bills last year, this Chamber was not allowed to debate all the groups of amendments selected for debate by the Speaker. For example, the Government deliberately restricted the time for debate on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill so that dozens of new clauses were not debated; on the Counter-Terrorism Bill Members had only three hours to discuss 16 new clauses and 60 amendments covering crucial issues such as post-charge questioning and control orders; and on the Climate Change Bill we were not allowed to debate the crucial amendment increasing the carbon reduction target from 60 to 80 per cent., which doubled the Bill's cost and which many supporters felt did not go far enough.
	Moreover, the time saved on debating primary legislation has not been used to scrutinise secondary legislation, which increasingly accounts for the substance of our laws. The proportion of statutory instruments requiring the affirmative procedure considered by the House has fallen from one third in the last three years of the Major Government to just 6 per cent. now and, of the thousands of statutory instruments subject to the negative procedure, the number put to the vote in the Chamber declined from one in 200 under the previous Government—that figure is bad enough—to only one in 1,000 now.
	In the present climate, people assume that that proves that Members of Parliament are lazy as well as greedy. I shall say nothing of greed, other than that many hon. Members backed my last ten-minute Bill, even though it sought to cut MPs' pay whenever we give away powers to Europe or the courts. Far from being lazy, most MPs are eager to scrutinise legislation, to hold Ministers to account and to debate the Opposition's policies too—we would willingly do so for longer. It is Ministers, not Back Benchers, who prefer to send Parliament away for as long as possible, because all Governments, not just this one, find it is disagreeable to be scrutinised, criticised and held to account. There is a myth, which has been given a new lease of life by the recent crisis of confidence in Parliament, that debates no longer matter and that MPs are Lobby fodder controlled by ever more powerful Whips. Commentators hark back to the "golden age", when MPs were supposedly more independent-minded, Whips had less power and the Government could get legislation through only by genuinely convincing their own supporters or by winning over some Opposition MPs.
	In fact, Professor Cowley's evidence to the Modernisation Committee demonstrates that things have been moving in exactly the opposite direction. When Lord Hailsham described the British constitution as an elective dictatorship, there was a lot of truth in his description. Between 1945 and 1970, there was not a single Government defeat in the House of Commons as a result of Back-Bench dissent. There were two whole Sessions in the 1950s during which not a single Government Member defied their Whip, but since then Back Benchers have become increasingly independent minded in each successive Parliament.
	More than 4,300 votes were cast against the Conservative Whip during Margaret Thatcher's Government, and no fewer than 6,500 votes cast against the Labour Whip under this Government. Despite new Labour's passion for discipline and its big majorities, it has faced the largest rebellions this House has seen since the corn laws. Time and again, Labour has only been able to get legislation through by making concessions to critics on its own side, by winning the support of minor parties or by relying on the Opposition. On issues such as 42 days, it had to back down ultimately, as it did recently on the Gurkhas. It may also have to back down on the Post Office, just as John Major's Cabinet did.
	One reason MPs are more independent nowadays is that we are in continual dialogue with our constituents in ways that did not happen in the past. They write to us, question us and e-mail back to us. They will not be fobbed off with the official party brief and so we are forced to look at controversial issues in depth. On occasion, in trying to convince our electors that our party's line is correct, we end up convincing ourselves that it needs to change. I believe that that is a good thing. It means that debate matters, scrutiny matters and Parliament matters. But that requires time. I remember a former Labour Chief Whip, the late Lord Cocks, telling me during a late-night sitting, "Peter, time is the only weapon the Opposition have. We can't win the votes, but given time we can win the argument. Given time, we can drum those arguments in until your Ministers lose confidence in their own policies, you lose confidence in them and the public lose confidence in the lot of you." My Bill will give future Oppositions that time, so I know that I can count on the support of all those Labour Members who recognise that they may be sitting on these Benches before too long.
	By contrast, some of my right hon. Friends on the Front Bench may have their doubts. Scrutiny is uncomfortable. The first instinct of every Whip is to curtail it if they cannot prevent it entirely. But scrutiny is good for good government. Governments with good policies and confidence in those policies—and with the humility to respond positively to constructive criticism of them—have nothing to fear and much to gain from full and thorough scrutiny in this place. I ask leave to bring in this Bill and set Parliament free to do its job.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Ordered,
	That Mr. Peter Lilley, Anne Main, Sir Patrick Cormack, Mr. Christopher Chope, Philip Davies, Mark Fisher, Mr. John Gummer, Dr. Evan Harris, Mr. Elfyn Llwyd, Mr. Chris Mullin and Mr. Charles Walker present the Bill.
	Mr. Peter Lilley accordingly presented the Bill.
	 Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 3 July and to be printed (Bill 113).

Mr. Speaker: One of the pleasant side effects of a Speaker moving on is that his signature becomes a collectors' item. I can inform the House that in the past few weeks I have signed several hundred bottles of Speaker Martin's malt. The Chancellor will be pleased to know that some bottles are fetching as much as £150 on eBay. I wanted to help the Chancellor in stimulating the economy, but, as a lifelong teetotaller, I am surprised that I could do so in such a way.
	I pay tribute to my staff in Speaker's House: Angus Sinclair, the Speaker's Secretary; Peter Barratt, the Assistant Secretary; Ian Davis, my Trainbearer; Chris Michael, the Diary Secretary; Eve Griffith-Okai; Katherine McCarthy and Abdulaye Balogun. In Speaker's House, Mrs. Gloria Hawkes, Housekeeper, has always been there for us; a good friend. No Speaker could ask for a better or more dedicated staff. My three Deputies, Sir Alan Haselhurst, Sylvia Heal and Sir Michael Lord, have shown me first-class support, both inside and outside the House, where their expertise is plain to see. I also thank the members of the Chairmen's Panel for their dedication in working night and day.
	I must say thank you to the work force in the Palace of Westminster. It is plain for Members to see the Police, Security Officers and Badge Messengers going about their duties and their courtesy is renowned. We have a Library that is highly regarded by every democracy, and especially in the Commonwealth. It has adapted so well to our electronic age.
	The Speaker's Chaplain, Canon Robert Wright, has given me invaluable spiritual guidance. The Legal Services Office under Speaker's Counsel does much that is unsung. The Clerks—men and women who are excellent procedural experts—give advice at our side every day we are in Session. They go out of their way to provide help and research. Their advice to emerging democracies in eastern Europe and beyond is invaluable and they are held in the highest regard.  Hansard's powers of concentration and accuracy are first class, and the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and Inter-Parliamentary Union do so much for us.
	I must mention those men and women who run our catering outlets and those associated with the Department of Facilities who are behind the scenes cleaning, maintaining and quietly working hard in our support, so often without much recognition. And the same goes for those in the Fees Office—the Department of Resources, as it is now called.
	Some of these men and women we do not often see or do not know by name. I have taken every opportunity to ask them to Speaker's House when I can, to thank them for their hard work on your behalf. As testimony to their dedication, I recall that on 7 July 2005, many walked home or walked to work when their transport had stopped, and they made sure that they were at their work the next day. In the snowstorm that stopped London this year, many made that huge effort to walk in and do their work, and they are a credit to this House.
	When I found out that the Palace of Westminster with its Pugin craftsmanship did not have apprentices, I proposed an apprenticeship scheme. All the trades of the House—the carpenters, electricians, plumbers, upholsterers and chefs—embarked on a work experience and apprenticeship scheme that has allowed local boys and girls to be trained to a very high skill, making them employable here in the House or outside in all parts of London. By the summer break, some of the apprentices will be receiving their final trades certificates. I am grateful to all those who are giving so many young people a good start in life.
	When you charged me with the responsibility of caring for Speaker's House, my wife Mary and I resolved to make this place of world heritage also a place of welcome. So many fellow Members and Members of the other place honoured us with their presence. It was a pleasure to receive leaders and Speakers from democracies throughout the world over the past eight years. I will leave Speaker's House in the knowledge that I have opened the House to people from so many charities who have either wanted to promote their work or celebrate a special anniversary or occasion. It was always a joy to receive regular visits from the little children from LATCH, the leukaemia charity of Wales.
	We welcomed many voluntary, professional and veterans associations, including the Royal College of Midwives. We also welcomed world war two veterans—some from HMS Speaker—and representatives of Marie Curie, which is a hospice in my constituency, the homeless charities, and the Huntington's Disease Association.
	As a man of Christian faith, I have been able to welcome other faith groups and was so pleased to initiate the annual Jewish celebration of Hanukkah taking place in Speaker's House, bringing members of staff, Members of the House and others of this ancient faith together.
	I want to mention a few recent issues that have troubled me greatly.
	The police search of the office of the hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green) led to my statement of 3 December last year, which I affirm today. I am pleased that the Government Chief Whip has assured me that an all-party inquiry of eight senior Members, with a member of the Opposition in the Chair and with no Government majority, will inquire into this matter, establish the truth of those events in full transparency, and allow all the lessons to be learned. I will give evidence to any depth required by the House.
	Let me turn to Members' expenses and allowances. This subject has caused understandable loss of public trust and confidence in us all. In my 30 years in this House, I have seen nothing like it.
	Let me say again to the men and women of this country that I am sorry.
	But also let me remind this House that it passed up an opportunity to deal with this emotive issue less than a year ago.
	In January 2008, I was tasked by the House with reviewing Members' allowances. I pay tribute to my colleagues—the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Sir Stuart Bell), the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (David Maclean) and the hon. Member for North Devon (Nick Harvey)—on the Members Estimate Committee, who worked very hard to produce detailed and thorough proposals. They took a wide range of evidence and produced a report that was blunt and straightforward, and whose 18 separate recommendations were presented to the House on the 3 July 2008.
	In a letter to me on 30 June last year, Sir Christopher Kelly, Chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, commented that the Committee was
	"pleased to see the proposals for a more robust system of audit and assurance, based for the most part on claims backed by receipts, and by the implied acceptance of complete transparency about what is claimed. Taken together, these seem to us to be significant steps towards the establishment of the robust regime that MPs and the taxpayer have the right to expect".
	The response of the House was deeply disappointing. Half of all Members did not attend to vote, and more than half of those who did vote rejected the proposals. I regretted that then: I deeply regret it now, and I expect that many Members of the House now share that regret.
	Of course, the recommendations would not have solved every difficulty, but they would have ended many practices for which Members have been attacked in recent weeks.
	Some proposals have been seized on by party leaders who have come up with their own solutions but, by and large, those solutions were in my Committee's 18 recommendations. They would have stopped claims for furniture and household goods, ended outer-London Members claiming for the cost of second homes, introduced a robust new system of internal and—crucially—external audit, and reduced the receipt level to zero.
	I wish with all my heart that those recommendations had won the confidence of the House last July. And I wish that party leaders would have shown then some of the leadership that they have shown now.
	Tradition has it that such votes are not whipped, but this does not remove the responsibility of leaders to speak up for common sense and for the obvious wishes of the country in seeking necessary reform. We should have done that last year.
	As to the legal challenges made to the Freedom of Information Act, as Speaker I could see that some Members wanted complete and total transparency, while others strongly argued that the information should only be to a certain degree. The representations to me came from every party, and from every level of those parties.
	I listened to these representations but I was also aware that, in an important area of law such as this, the decision of a very new Information Tribunal to publish the details of 14 Members of Parliament had to be tested in a higher court, because its decision would affect all 646 Members. What we now know is that transparency will be the House's best safeguard.
	On 4 May 1979, the people of Glasgow, Springburn—now Glasgow, North-East—entrusted me with the greatest honour of my life when I was returned as their Member of Parliament. Glasgow is the place where I served my apprenticeship as a young metal worker, and where I joined the trade union, of which I am still proud to be a member. It is also where I married my wife, Mary, and where we raised our family. My thoughts go back to the fact that every member of my family, including my son Paul and daughter Mary, have been cared for so well at Stobhill hospital, which, over the years, I have been able to campaign for on the Floor of this House.
	Of the many issues affecting my constituency, housing has been a fundamental problem, so it has been exciting and rewarding to have been able to engage in the early years of the new community-based housing associations. In 30 years, their growing strength has brought about dignity and comfort for many men, women and children who would otherwise have faced damp and inadequate dwellings. Furthermore, they have spurred the growth of excellent local institutions, community halls and sheltered housing for our elderly.
	As the House will appreciate, I took pride, throughout my time as a Back Bencher and as Speaker, in holding surgeries and taking up matters that were important to individual organisations, and all the people of my constituency. I must record and give thanks for the support of my agent, Councillor Gerry Leonard, my constituency assistant, Mrs. Georgie Rainey, and my lifelong friend, Mr. Barry Reamsbottom, who helps me here in London. They have always shown unfailing support in the constituency, and I am honoured to have worked with them.
	The constituency will always be home in every sense for me. There can be no greater honour than bringing to this House the richness of that experience, the privilege of representing friends and neighbours, and the values of family and community that I hold dear. To all those good people of Glasgow, North-East, and Springburn before it, let me say this: I will forever be in your debt for giving me your friendship, support and trust.
	I have enjoyed every day of coming to this House. It was a great honour to be invited by Speaker Weatherill to be on his panel. That took me to the chairmanship of the Scottish Grand Committee, travelling the length and breadth of Scotland bringing Parliament to the people. I then became Chairman of the Administration Committee, and then Deputy Speaker.
	In 2000, you entrusted me with the great office of Speaker. I have been so happy to serve you, and to represent the House at home and abroad. I was honoured to be the first Speaker to pay an official visit to Poland, a country that I always hoped and prayed would be free of communism one day. Because of my political neutrality as a Speaker, I must withdraw from the natural comradeship of this place and be a little isolated in Speaker's House. I raise that point because I would like to thank my wife Mary for coming to London each week, when her natural instinct was to remain in her beloved Glasgow. Without intruding in my business, she has always been there in support, and she has done so much to make Speaker's House a place of welcome, planning and working on official and unofficial events.
	Though this Parliament is at its lowest ebb, I can testify to the goodness of the vast majority of members of this House. I have had the privilege, often late at night, during Adjournment debates to witness Members from every party, including minority parties, raising the problem of one sole constituent who is perhaps experiencing a health or social security problem. Those Members were using their right to question Government Ministers. Most strikingly, when working miners suffered the cruel effects of industrial diseases, there was no shortage of Members to make demands of Government Ministers, asking them to give those good, hard-working people compensation.
	Members regularly acted as a group, showing tenacity when campaigning for those whom they represent, and those who have been denied human rights in countries abroad. Let us not forget that it was this Parliament that achieved what seemed impossible: all the political parties of Northern Ireland took huge risks in setting aside their long-held differences, and in doing so they worked with all the political parties in this House, achieving a peace that has brought harmony to Northern Ireland. It was a proud moment for me when I welcomed the Irish Taoiseach on behalf of this House, and his welcome was that given to a friend. That was this Parliament at its very best.
	There are those who will remind us of our unworthy moments, but when I am asked, I will tell of the goodness that exists in this House. I will leave this House with fond and moving memories. One of those memories is of meeting a Holocaust survivor called Rosa. She came to this country in 1946 after she had endured the horrors of Auschwitz and a long forced march back to Germany. She raised her family in Britain, and she would say about this Parliament, "That building gave me my freedom." Rosa held this House in high regard for perfectly justifiable reasons. The House must work tirelessly to restore the high esteem that she saw in it. Knowing you all personally, I know that you will do that, so that the people of the United Kingdom will have, once again, a parliamentary democracy that they can regard as the best in the world.
	In the work ahead, you will be criticised strongly, particularly for this sad period. When scorned, take as comfort the words that Robert Burns wrote to those whom he described as "The Rigidly Righteous":
	"Then gently scan your brother man,
	Still gentler sister woman;
	Tho' they may go a little wrong,
	To step aside is human."
	 [Applause.]

Gordon Brown: I beg to move,
	That this House records its warm appreciation of the manner in which the Right Honourable Michael Martin has occupied the office of Speaker; expresses its thanks for the humanity and good humour with which he has presided over the affairs of the House at a most challenging time; congratulates him on the kindness and openness he has shown to all Members and for establishing a Speaker's conference to examine engagement of Parliament with an increasingly diverse society; and accordingly unites in sending him its wishes for a long and happy retirement upon his departure from the Chair.
	Mr. Speaker, I regard it as a great privilege that it falls to me to be the first to speak to this motion, and the first to offer you, on behalf of the whole House, heartfelt thanks for your long and dedicated service to Parliament—as a Member of Parliament, a Chair of Committees, a Deputy Speaker and, of course, most recently, for nearly nine years' service as our Speaker. As is typical of you, in your remarks today, you have been anxious to thank all those who have worked with you during your period as Speaker. As is also typical of you, your concern for others is reflected in the work that you have done with your wife in hosting numerous charitable events in the Speaker's House. And as again is typical of you, you ended your speech today by talking about the human rights and social justice with which Parliament is best associated, and your commitment to that as a lifelong supporter of both the rights of individuals and social justice.
	Your long career and your life's journey from your roots in post-war Glasgow—no easy upbringing, no special privileges, education mainly in the hard school of life—through your apprenticeship, which you described, as a sheet metal worker and a shop steward, then via the trades union movement and local government into Parliament and on to the highest office of this ancient forum of democracy, is an inspiring story of commitment and determination in the service of your community, your party, this Parliament and our nation.
	Let us remember, fellow Members, how this Speaker worked his way up. His father served in the war and was shipwrecked three times by torpedo. His mother, who brought him up, taught him that he and his community had to fight for everything they won. To leave school at 15 with no formal qualifications and then rise to the speakership of the House of Commons tells of a man of unique parliamentary abilities, and of dedication, self-belief and tireless hard work. You have known better than many in the House what it is like to grow up in poverty, and also what it takes to overcome it, but throughout it all you have remained true to your principles and proud of where you have come from.
	You are a teetotaller, so the pleasure that you gave to others in choosing and testing Mr. Speaker's brand of whisky is something that they are entirely grateful for. I am reminded that in Glasgow 100 years ago, the Labour party once stood on a platform supporting your position on the prohibition of alcohol, and decided never to stand on that platform at another election.
	You know Glasgow and have come up through the difficult school of Glasgow politics. You know what is said about someone appearing in Glasgow as a comedian—if they like you, they do not laugh. They just let you live.
	Ask people in north Glasgow who it was who offered them comfort when they lost someone dear to them, or when they lost their jobs or had problems with housing, which you have just mentioned, or troubles with schooling. On the streets of Cowlairs, Sighthill or Barlarnock you will get the same answer: it was Michael Martin. This House should salute a Speaker who has made his constituency proud and who is hailed as a friend by people from every background and every walk of life when he walks down the streets of his constituency; a Speaker who, as he said, was born and brought up in the city that he has represented with pride for 30 years; a Speaker whose small kindnesses to hundreds of people are remembered and unfailingly appreciated, and who has brought home to thousands what Westminster at its best can do for people.
	Never interested in the trappings of office, only in the concerns of the people we represent, this is a Speaker who returned to his constituency every weekend to meet the people he represented and who has never forgotten where he came from, always determined to hear what they had to say to him; a Speaker who, because he worked his way up with no special privileges accorded to him, can encourage and inspire young people in the same position to do the same.
	It is a fitting tribute, Mr. Speaker, to your long-standing commitment to housing, which you just mentioned, from your days as a councillor on Glasgow city council to your maiden speech in the House, which referred to housing, to your work today with housing associations across north-east Glasgow, that as part of a programme of housing and care for those with learning disabilities there stands in Glasgow today none other than Martin house. It is a reflection of your work in supporting employment opportunities in Glasgow that you helped to transform a restored warehouse into City Park, a state-of-the-art office space that has provided over 2,500 jobs, thanks to your inspiration.
	Perhaps it was because of your deep roots in community service that you brought to the role of Speaker your hallmark kindness and consideration, for which you will rightly be remembered with such affection. As I know myself, and as other Members in the House know, your personal concern for those of us who were bereaved or otherwise troubled, the notes and letters, and the kind words went far beyond the duties of the office of Speaker, but I am sure that to you were they were just the ordinary duties of a man who cares about people.
	While interns in their hundreds have for so long been able to come to and feel at home in these precincts, your initiative on craft apprenticeships, which you have just mentioned, has enabled young people from less privileged backgrounds to train here and, with skills as stonemasons and electricians, make a genuine and lasting contribution to the upkeep of this place and then go on to fulfilling careers in later life.
	At every stage of your career, you have always thought first of how to extend opportunities to those denied them. You have always stood at the shoulder of those struggling to make a better life for themselves and their families. You said in your first acceptance speech in October 2000 that family was important to you and that you would endeavour to see that families were included in the proceedings of the House. Even before you were elected Speaker, it was largely due to your efforts that the Parliamentary Commissioner approved a voucher scheme to provide child care in the House. I hope you can take great pride in some of the changes that have been made in modernising the House during your time, not least the changes to the sitting hours and, of course, the new procedures for election of the Speaker, which we will use for the first time next week.
	I have spoken of your love of family. No tribute to you could be complete without mention of your children, Paul and Mary Ann, and your wife Mary, a wonderful family for whose support I know you will always be enormously grateful. They and you have much to be proud of from your nine years as our Speaker and from your 30 years outstanding service to the House and this country. I am sure the whole House will always be grateful to you. We hope you will enjoy a long and happy retirement, and every Member in every part of the House offers you every good wish for the future. Thank you.

David Cameron: It is right, Mr. Speaker, that the House has this opportunity to pay tribute to the service that you have given—for once, I can say "you" while remaining in order. I share so much of what the Prime Minister said about your record and about what you have done for your constituents and for the House. Yours was a very moving speech. Everyone could hear your passion about this place, and all of us who care about the House of Commons, Parliament and its place in public life must deliver what you said we must—the restoration of trust in the House of Commons.
	It is fair to say that there have been quieter times to be Speaker, although some of your predecessors may have had cause to think they had picked even shorter straws. After all, seven of them were beheaded. You have presided over the House at a time when there has been widespread concern about an over-mighty Executive and the diminished role of Parliament. That was not something that was in your power alone to stop.
	Let us be clear about the expenses issue. The whole House shares in its responsibility for what has happened in recent weeks. As you said in your remarks, it was the House as a whole—not all of us, but the House as a whole—which last July rejected many of the reforms put forward by the Members Estimate Committee, which you chair. As you noted in your statement, some of the proposals now being put forward to clean up this place are similar to the ones that your Committee recommended a year ago. Fortunately, a consensus exists in this place now to accept what it was not willing to accept then, but we all share collective responsibility for that delay, and we all now have a responsibility to restore the reputation of the House.
	You have served exactly three decades in Parliament. During that time you have shown huge dedication, both in public service to your constituents and to the House itself. You have served not only as Speaker, but as Chairman of the House of Commons Commission and of the Speaker's Conference, and before that as a Chairman of Committees, member of the Speaker's Panel of Chairmen for more than a decade, and Chairman of the Scottish Grand Committee. It is a remarkable record of distinguished service, matched only by the huge dedication that you have shown to your constituency in Glasgow, starting from your period as a councillor.
	As the Prime Minister said, your life story is inspiring not just to people in the House or in Glasgow, but to people throughout our country. I know you will be missed hugely in Glasgow, North-East when you stand down as a Member of Parliament. I am sure that those on both sides of the House are very much looking forward to the by-election. I can only hope that all your constituents will be as friendly to me as you have been.  [Laughter.] I am always hopeful.
	Your approach to chairing debates has been quiet but persuasive. Your decency and your kindness are clear. We saw your decency during the Baby P debate last year. As for your kindness, I referred a few days ago to the advice that you gave me when I was a new Back Bencher in 2001. It was typical of your approachability to all Members, but especially Back Benchers, which you have made a personal trademark throughout your time in office. The last Speaker, Speaker Boothroyd, was the first woman Speaker. You were the first Catholic since the Reformation to be Speaker. It is easy to overlook the change that the election of you and your immediate predecessor as Speaker signify.
	I was struck by one comment that you made in an interview after becoming Speaker. When asked about the procedures of this place, you recalled some wise words of Jim Callaghan:
	"Always remember that things that are traditional shouldn't be thrown out just because they are traditional; and things that are traditional shouldn't necessarily be kept for the sake of being traditional."
	That is a good principle for the reform not only of the House, but, I would argue, of every other institution in our country.
	I shall end by noting another interview, this time to the "Politics Show", which provides several lessons for us all. In that interview, Mr. Speaker, you emphasised the importance of switching off from politics—in your case, by playing the bagpipes. You said that the secret of Prime Minister's Question Time was to relax and calm down and not to get psyched up. That is a piece of advice that I will perhaps one day try to take. You said also that the best way to approach colleagues in the House was to give them just enough rope before pulling them in, and that you liked to smile at Members just before you told them off. As I can see that you are smiling now, I think it is time to bring my remarks to a close.  [Laughter.] However, I know, and we all know, that you will enjoy spending more quality time with your wife, Mary, and your beloved grandchildren. So both on a personal level and on behalf of everyone on the Opposition Benches, I wish you the very best for the years ahead.

Nicholas Clegg: Mr. Speaker, in the circumstances, it is especially generous of you to give me the opportunity to speak today, and I am grateful to you for that.
	I entered this House only in 2005, and one of my most abiding memories of those first few weeks was your generosity to the former Member for Cheadle, Patsy Calton, when she came, despite the fragility of her health, to swear the oath of allegiance. I do not think that any of us will forget the tenderness with which you stepped from the Chair, against all convention, to greet her by the Dispatch Box. It has been clear to all of us, whatever differences there might be, that personal kindness has been the outstanding characteristic of your time in the Chair—a kindness that enthused every word of what you said earlier.
	As a newly elected party leader, I remember sitting with you in your apartments, talking not about politics but about our families, and I remember on another occasion watching you unveil a portrait of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North-East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) in those same rooms. It was wonderful to listen to both of you reminisce about the journey that had taken you from almost the same area in Glasgow to public service here in Parliament.
	Mr. Speaker, whatever differences there have been, you and I share a belief in the importance of our democracy. Our political institutions, as you have pointed out, have come under immense and unprecedented pressure in recent times, but democracy remains an idea that is bigger than every one of us—an idea that must be defended no matter the personal cost. I know—everyone here knows—that you gave yourself, heart and soul, to the job of Speaker. Above all, you have shown us all how to temper great authority with great kindness, and that will be your legacy.

Mohammad Sarwar: Mr. Speaker, it is a great pleasure and a privilege to address my remarks to you in paying the warmest tribute for the service that you have provided to this House, for which we are indebted to you. I would like to thank you personally for the kindness and support that you offered me when I was elected. I believe that throughout your term as Speaker, you have always had the best interests of this House at heart, and, even now, in leaving office, you have put those interests first.
	Your election as Speaker was a great honour for you and your family, and an even greater honour for our native city of Glasgow. You began your working life as a sheet metal worker, and all your achievements are the result of your own hard work and ambition. It is a positive indicator of the society in which we live today that someone from such humble beginnings can rise to one of the greatest offices in the country.
	Mr. Speaker, I was incredibly sad when you informed this House that you were resigning from the office of Speaker. That sentiment has been shared by many of my constituents who have contacted me over the past few weeks.
	I would like to share with the House a few lines of an e-mail that I received from a 16-year-old constituent who visited the House last year as part of a school trip. Her name is Kayleigh Quinn, and she wrote:
	"I am deeply upset that Mr Martin has been compelled to resign from his post. As someone from the same working-class Glasgow background as Michael Martin I am extremely proud of what he has achieved in his political career. The Members of Parliament who contributed to his decision ought to be ashamed."
	In short, Mr. Speaker, many young people throughout the United Kingdom look to you as a source of inspiration—an inspiration that anything can be achieved through dedication and hard work.
	Your distinguished predecessor, Speaker Boothroyd, is famously known for having said that there are times when she thinks that she has come a long way, and I believe that you are certainly entitled to say the same. Mr Speaker, I repeat my thanks to you once again.

Mr. Speaker: I call the Father of the House.

Alan Williams: Mr. Speaker, may I say what a great pleasure it was, at the beginning of this Parliament, to preside over your reselection as Speaker of this House? You were a triple-first candidate: as has been said, you were the first Catholic, the first metalworker and, unsurprisingly, the first teetotaller to occupy the Chair. You learned of your needs to protect the rights of the Back Bencher through 18 years in opposition, and I think that many Opposition Members now, having spent 12 years in opposition, particularly those in the party that governed previously, view accountability rather differently from when they sat on the Government Benches.
	I well recollect my very first day in the House, in 1964, when I sat on the second row of the Government Benches. I was sitting next to Iorwerth Thomas, a 70-year-old Welsh Member, and I said to him, "Well, Iori, it must be wonderful to be sitting on this side of the House after 13 years on that side," and he thought and he said, "Yes, my boy; the sun gets in your eyes on the other side of the House." That, of course, was in the days before television and the screening of the windows.
	As you said, you served your apprenticeship as Speaker doing the unglamorous work of chairing the legislative and administrative Committees of the House, and you duly became Deputy Speaker. By the time you became the Speaker of the House, you were a complete House of Commons man. You said then that the Speaker's duty was to serve the House, not the Executive, and to protect the rights of Back Benchers.
	Essentially, you are also a constituency man. I was intrigued to come across a quote from Bill Walker, the former Conservative MP whom many here will remember. Bill said of you:
	"He is always respected by his electorate because he speaks from the heart."
	That was a touching thing for a political opponent to say, and it helps explain the affection in which you are held in your own constituency. You are an innately kind man, as we heard from one of our colleagues even in Question Time today. Since you have been Speaker, your door has been open to any Member who wants advice or guidance.
	To follow on from something that you mentioned, I should say that until last July, I was secretary of the British-American parliamentary group for seven years. I thank you, on behalf of not only that group but the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, for all your work to help our endeavours to develop relationships with democracies overseas. You put an enormous amount of time into that, and it is appreciated by us all.
	As Chair of the Liaison Committee, may I also thank you for your enormous support for Select Committees? They are only 30 years old this year, but they represent one of the greatest transformations in parliamentary accountability. When I became Chair of the Liaison Committee, I spoke to every Select Committee Chairman. Having served on the Public Accounts Committee, I was horrified at what I discovered was available as back-up and support to our Select Committees. I asked that a review be set up and that the National Audit Office be included in that review to ensure that it was seen as impartial.
	When the review reported, you and the House of Commons Commission responded instantly. You gave the Select Committees the largest injection of support that they had received in 20 years. To ensure that such a situation never arose again, five-yearly reviews were also established so that the future of the Committees would be secure. We are deeply grateful to you for that. You have presided during two wars and the greatest economic crisis that any of us has ever seen. Throughout, you have tried to be even-handed between the Government and the Opposition and you have tried to protect the right of Back Benchers to hold the Executive to account.
	Mr. Speaker, your love for and commitment to the House has never, ever been questioned. I am sure that I speak on behalf of the whole House in wishing you and your family the happiness that you deserve in retirement.

Elfyn Llwyd: It gives me great pleasure to say some brief words to celebrate your work, Mr. Speaker, and to thank you for it. I do that on behalf of my hon. Friends from Plaid Cymru and, I am sure, on behalf of the public at large. I am also pleased to have agreed with everything that has been said hitherto. You, of course, are the 156th Speaker of Parliament, and you have been unfailing in your courtesy and help throughout your tenure. Almost immediately after your election as Speaker, we all became aware of a press lobby that harboured misgivings about the appointment of a one-time steel worker to such a high office. Those have not crossed my mind; my experience has been of a Speaker who has been scrupulously fair and who always had an eye on the interests of Back Benchers and minority parties.
	Owing to the attention from some sections of the media, I can only imagine that at times the pressures on you and your family have been immense. Despite your vast work load, every time that I have sought a meeting with you, one has been arranged swiftly; even the odd meetings that I attended to do some grousing were unfailingly cordial and businesslike.
	Speaking of grouse, I should say that I have a feather in my cap that is not shared by any other right hon. or hon. Member. A few weeks before the official opening of the Senedd building at the National Assembly in Cardiff, I received a telephone call from the Speaker's Clerk, asking whether I would visit you. I duly responded and attended as requested, having no idea why I was being summoned in that way. I entered your chambers in a quizzical mood, with no earthly idea of why I was there. I comforted myself with the thought that I had been behaving reasonably well in the Chamber and that I was probably not going to be dressed down.
	When you came in, you said that, as a Scot, you were keen to make a speech in the Welsh language during the official opening ceremony in Cardiff. You asked me to write a short speech and translate it into Welsh. I did that, recorded it and gave you a tape. There followed a practice session in which you showed a mastery of the language. I recall that you said that you were keen to do a good job, because anything else would be seen as insulting. Anyway, your pronunciation was second to none when the fabled, fickle finger of fate pointed your way and you were struck down by a heavy dose of influenza. You could not attend. In the meantime, I was in the auditorium at Cardiff, awaiting my star pupil. So it is that I refer to myself as Welsh language tutor to the 156th Speaker of the House of Commons; that is probably as high as I will ever go in this institution.
	You also referred to your being a teetotaller. I remember attending a meeting with you and the right hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond). At its conclusion, you brought out a bottle of whisky and, as they say in Scotland, you "poured a good one"—in fact, for my liking it was a very good one. I was drinking on an empty stomach and unaccustomed to undiluted whisky. For the remainder of the meeting, I was with the birds.
	Speaker Weatherill once said that a Speaker has no friends, but you know that that is not true. You have sincere friends in all corners of the House. It has been a privilege to serve under you. I wish you, your lovely wife Mary and your whole family the very best in health and happiness on the cusp of what we all hope will be a long, fulfilling and well-earned retirement. No doubt there will now be time enough to become fluent in the Welsh language. Pob bendith a llwyddiant i chi a'ch teulu. Diolch yn fawr!

Mark Durkan: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Others have made the point that you are the first metalworker to be Speaker and the first Catholic to be Speaker. I took my seat in 2005, so you are the first Speaker I have known. Like others, I have always been hugely impressed by the consideration and courtesy that you show to each and every Member of this House, to all the parties in this House, and to all the regions represented in this House. I can recall, on taking my seat, the warmth of your handshake and greeting, and the fact that that lasted through the manner in which you, with civility and sensitivity, received my complaints as an Irish nationalist having to recite an affirmation of allegiance, and immediately moved on to ask after people such as John Hume and Seamus Mallon—who send their salute to you today.
	Mr. Speaker, you have never pretended to be a big thinker, but you are one of the most thoughtful people I have ever come across in political life. You are not a grabber, but you have the best and warmest reach of anyone in this House—a quiet reach that extends not just across party lines and regional differences in this House, but outside this House, across professional interests and across religious and faith dimensions. You have never particularly advertised that, but I am glad that you took the opportunity to reflect on some of those points today.
	I think it was also appropriate that you, Mr. Speaker, addressed some of the issues surrounding recent events, and it would be inappropriate if, in the course of all these tributes, you ended up being the only person who did so. The House should receive well the reminder that you offered, and if there was a measure of rebuke in it, the House should receive that rebuke well, too. There were opportunities, and there is now an opportunity cost that the House is suffering. Unfortunately—it happens in life, and it certainly happens in political life—sometimes events, perceptions and moods conspire to result in some necessary unfairness or unfair necessity, and you find yourself in many ways a victim of that.
	As you spend your retirement not just in your constituency but, I am sure, in one near me—not a constituency represented in this House, but that of Donegal North East, where I know you have such affinities and family connections—and contemplate how many people who resisted or avoided change in the past are now leapfrogging each other to be the champions of ever more change and openness, you will be able to ruminate on the adage that, in politics, irony is just hypocrisy with panache.
	I want, not just on my own behalf but that of my party colleagues, to extend that tribute and thanks not only to you but, as you have rightly done, to all your staff; and to your wife, Mary, who has, with you, again in a very special and quiet way, done so much to make Speaker's House available to so many good causes, as has been said, and to use it as a special stage to recognise, celebrate and encourage young talent from all the regions represented in the House.
	All Members will miss the warmth of your presence here and the consideration that you show. You are an extremely modest man. As we have heard, you are a Catholic. I am sure that as a Catholic boy of your vintage, you would have learned your catechism, which would have included lessons about calumny and detraction—what they were and the difference between them. After your experience in recent weeks, I am sure that you can give examples of both, and of how you have been on the wrong end of examples of both. However, Mr. Speaker, whatever the coverage in recent times and however hurtful it was, just remember that you, this modest man whom we respect, leave here with immense pride.

Bill Olner: It gives me great honour to be associated with the motion that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister moved. It was a fitting tribute to your good self, Mr. Speaker.
	Every Member of Parliament knows where they were when a new Speaker was selected. I can remember sitting on the Opposition Benches when we elected your predecessor, Betty Boothroyd, as Speaker. I remember that those on the Government Benches said, "Don't get too excited, that's the only vote you're going to win in this Parliament", and it was. I can also remember your election, Mr. Speaker. I remember the dignified way in which you approached it and quite rightly won the support of the overwhelming majority of the House. You and I come from similar trade union backgrounds, having similarly left school at 15 and become apprentices. I was not one of those whom you had to tell what a sheet metal worker was, because I already knew that before I got down here.
	A word to those who wish to succeed you. One of the most wonderful things that I have done in this House has been serving on Committees. I have served on your Chairmen's Panel for a while, but I also served on the special little committee that chose Speaker Martin's Whisky. That was a real privilege, and I hope that a similar one can be afforded other hon. Members.
	I know the professionalism and sincerity that you have brought to the job, and all that I wish to do is echo the words about the great kindnesses that you have shown. I will miss you as Speaker, and also as a friend. Have a good retirement.

Peter Viggers: I did not expect this to be a reunion of the panel that was chosen to select your malt whisky, Mr. Speaker, but it is. I was also a member of that Committee.
	The right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman) made passing reference to the Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission, which has been one of your important roles. It has been given specific tasks in relation to the commission, such as the approval of its budget, the examination of its estimates and reporting to the House. It is a carefully constructed link between an independent body and this House, and it has achieved its role very well. You appointed five of the nine members, and Electoral Commissions cannot be appointed without the Speaker's consent, effectively making your office the person responsible for such appointments.
	In January 2007, the Committee on Standards in Public Life recommended a change in the emphasis of the Electoral Commission to play a more regulatory role, and the Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission, under your chairmanship, actively participated in the discussions that led to the implementation of the proposals. The work of the Speaker's Committee has been well respected, and I am sure that the other members of the committee and, indeed, the Electoral Commission, would wish to pay tribute to your chairmanship during an active and evolutionary time.
	Being the spokesman of the Speaker's Committee gave me an opportunity to come to know you quite well, and I am extremely grateful for the courtesy and kindness that you always extended to me and the other members of the committee.

Frank Doran: Mr. Speaker, I associate myself with all the positive comments about your contribution to the House and your personal approach to the job of Speaker. I am particularly pleased to underline the comments about your attitude to the staff of the House of Commons. I know how much it is appreciated by everyone from the Clerk down to the lowest cleaner in the basement.
	I want to add a little about my contact with you. I was first elected in 1987 as one of 19 new Members of Parliament in Scotland. You were one of the people who gave us most support as new, very raw MPs. In 2005, I was selected as Chair of the Administration Committee and developed a much closer working relationship with you. It is important to put on record the number of changes that have happened under your speakership.
	We have been through momentous times in developing and modernising the building and the institution. As Chair of the Administration Committee, I quickly learned that most of my colleagues do not give a damn about what happens in this place as long as it works. However, it is important to record the changes that have been made.
	My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister rightly mentioned the modernisation of the hours that happened on your watch, but it is also right to remember more mundane matters, such as the introduction in 2001 of IT systems for Members of Parliament and the creation of a joint IT service with the House of Lords; the modernisation of the administration of the House after the Tebbit inquiry, and the creation of the new departments, which are much more focused on services to Members rather than to the institution of the House of Commons; the creation of a new post of chief executive, for which many of us called over many years, and the development of a Members' centre, which again recognises the importance of service directly to Members.
	Substantial changes have also occurred—some have yet to take effect. They include the House's agreement to establish an education centre. The will mark significant progress in the facilities that the House offers. At the moment, our facilities can cater for approximately 20,000 to 30,000 schoolchildren in a year. When the new education centre is established, we will be able to deal with more than 100,000, making this place more accessible. We are currently running a pilot scheme for subsidised travel for schoolchildren to come to the House of Commons. So far, it has been enormously successful.
	The big issue that has been on all our minds in recent years, to which you referred several times in your speech, is Members' allowances. I congratulate you on the points that you made. When one reads the press, one would think that you were sitting doing nothing, but I know from my contact with you how much work you and the members of the Commission put in, not just when we experienced the problem of employing family members, or in the recent crisis of the publication of our expenses in detail, but long before that. You recognised the problems that our system posed for us, realised that, with the Freedom of Information Act 2001, things had to change, and tried to find some solution. Like you, I feel strongly about the fact that we did not accept the Commission's report to the House last year.
	Recent events have made me think about the way in which we deal with expenses. My first exposure to MPs' allowances and so on came when I was a brand new Member in either late 1987 or early 1988, when we were asked to vote on our pay. I took the trade union position that a worker is entitled to the rate for the job. I found myself in the Lobby, which was jam packed, because most of my colleagues took the same view as me, pressed against the former Prime Minister and Conservative party leader, Ted Heath. I said to him, "For many years, I campaigned against your Government and denounced everything you stood for, yet here we are, shoulder to shoulder in the Lobby." He turned round and said, as only he could, "Young man, this will happen twice in every Parliament, on pay and hanging." That is the sort of leader I like. He did not just say things, he did things.
	In 1971, Ted Heath's Government introduced the allowances system that has caused us so much difficulty. It was introduced after due thought and consideration and I hope that those who now deal with those matters will appreciate their importance. As a Member of Parliament representing a constituency nearly 500 miles away, I could not afford to be a Member without the allowances, and I know that you have defended that principle sincerely throughout your period of office. I hope that, when decisions are made, others will reflect as seriously as I believe that Ted Heath did when he introduced the system in 1971.
	May I add my good wishes to you and Mary? Virtually everyone who passed on their good wishes talked about your retirement. I think I know you better than that. You may be leaving the House of Commons, but I am not so sure that it is retirement.

David Clelland: I want to make a personal tribute to you and your speakership, Mr. Speaker. Yours has been a remarkable journey from ordinary working-class lad from Glasgow to one of the highest offices in the land—Speaker of the House of Commons. You are a tribute to our democracy and an example to us all.
	You have served with dignity and distinction, often in the face of the inherent snobbery that still persists in some parts of the British establishment. On a personal level, I thank you for your kindness to me, not least when you agreed some years ago to meet my good friend Frank Duffy and me in your apartments—I am sure you remember that. Frank Duffy is another working-class trade union activist from Glasgow, but it was Frank's father whom you admired so much, for his trade union activities in Glasgow. We were accompanied that day by Frank's daughter Carol Ann and her daughter Ella. Carol Ann was recently appointed poet laureate, and her father Frank and her daughter are very proud of that. As memorable as that appointment is, however, I am quite sure that they will always remember with great fondness their visit to Speaker Martin's Apartment and your allowing Ella to bounce on the bed.
	I congratulate you, Mr. Speaker, on your term of office and thank you for your kindness. I wish you and your family a long and happy life ahead.

Judy Mallaber: I appear to be the last person to speak. I thank you very much for calling me, as I had forgotten to put my name down to speak in this debate. It was only when I was sitting here at the beginning of the tributes that I wondered whether I would have the nerve to stand up and ask to speak, having gone against all the protocol that we are meant to observe. However, I could not let this afternoon pass without making a few personal comments of my own.
	I am glad that many hon. Members today have addressed head-on the issue of snobbery and the comments that have been made not only by the tabloid press but by Members of this House from time to time. I am glad that those issues have been addressed head-on, and that we have talked about expenses and the missed opportunity last year. I am pleased that you tackled that subject in your opening remarks.
	In questioning candidates at the Speaker's hustings earlier this week, I commented that a substantial part of your success in winning the speakership and that big battle we had last time was that among the Speaker's team, you had gone out of your way to be helpful, kind and welcoming to new Members, particularly the great influx we had in 1997. That is not, of course, to suggest that it was a political ploy, although I would not dream of suggesting that you are not a good politician, but your approach came very naturally out of your kindness and desire to help us. That sentiment is shared across the parties, as I noted during the hustings when Members of different political parties passed comments to me about your kindness across the board. That has been greatly appreciated by us all.
	I personally think it is a shame that Speakers feel that they have to retreat from the Tea Rooms and the like once elected. I hope that that will not necessarily be the case in future, because that is good way for the Speaker to dispense advice, assistance and encouragement. You have been able to do that through invitations to your house and as we have seen you round and about the Chamber.
	Others have talked about your start in the trade union movement as a sheet metal worker. My personal connection with you, Mr. Speaker, is that we both worked for the same union, the National Union of Public Employees. You were a full-time official, working with low-paid public service workers, and you campaigned at that time for a minimum wage. Although you have had to be strictly politically neutral in the Chair, I am sure that it gave you great pleasure when we were able to pass that legislation for which you had campaigned in your earlier life.
	I had not realised how many of us had been on the panel to select your whisky. When I went on it, I found that another Derbyshire Member, the Opposition Chief Whip was involved, so I thought that you were saying something about our county and our enjoyment of a wee dram. My slight beef is that we were given only a limited selection from which to choose; otherwise, we could easily have stayed there for another hour or two to make sure that we made the absolutely perfect choice for you. I and clearly many other hon. Members have greatly appreciated the honour of being allowed to choose for you.
	Another position that I hold, somehow, slightly to my amusement, arose when someone came up one day and asked me whether I would like to sit on the Speaker's works of art committee. I knew nothing about it and I do not know how I was chosen. It was slightly disappointing when, having chosen our selection of Christmas cards and sent them to you, we found that some other ones had got through or that you had not gone along with our first choice. You have always been very welcoming and supportive. I am thinking particularly of the exhibition to celebrate the anniversary of the suffragettes, which you were very encouraging about, saying that MPs should take their constituents to look at the history of how people, particularly women, struggled for the vote. You knew that this was part of our great history of seeking democracy.
	That brings me back to the major point about your high regard for the House, for Back Benchers and for our democratic processes. The greatest tribute we can pay to you and your work, Mr. Speaker, over your years as Speaker is by resolving our current problems and restoring the House and this part of our democratic system to the respect that it should have. If we can earn that respect on your behalf, I believe that it will be a tribute to the work you have done.
	Thank you hugely, Mr. Speaker, for the kindness you have shown to us all and for the work you have done over the years. I join everyone else in wishing you, Mary and the family the best for the future. I am not going to say "in retirement", because we hope that we will still see you and still be able to partake of your judgment and friendship over the years to come.

Sarah McCarthy-Fry: The Bill was amended in the other place on Report, so a ballot is required before any business rate supplement can be levied or any existing business rate supplement can be varied. Due to amendments 8 and 9, which we will come on to, a ballot will not be required for the BRS that will form part of the Crossrail funding package.
	The Government recognise that the BRS will not work unless there is a strong and effective partnership between the levying authority and local businesses. Throughout the passage of the Bill, we have made it clear that we expect levying authorities to engage with local businesses in the development of the BRS and to continue engaging with business once the project is under way.
	To provide further reassurance on this point, we committed on Report to the statutory guidance making it clear that levying authorities must consider how they will engage with businesses over and above the statutory consultation. The appropriate approach to engagement, however, will depend on the nature of the project that BRS will be funding and the partnership arrangements that already exist between levying authorities and their local businesses. For that reason, we should leave levying authorities to work responsibly with their local businesses in developing BRS projects, rather than prescribing from Westminster how this should be done.
	We should trust our local authorities. During the Public Bill Committee evidence sessions, Councillor Knight, speaking on behalf of the Local Government Association, said:
	"The guarantee to local businesses that this power will not be abused is the guarantee that we are accountable to local communities. We have a direct interest in ensuring that local economies are maintained and sustained...No authority will make a decision that has a detrimental effect on its local business community." ——[ Official Report, Business Rate Supplements Public Bill Committee, 20 January 2009; c. 65-75. Q250]
	The Government's position is that a ballot should be held in those cases where the supplement will fund more than one third of the estimated total cost of a project and it ensures that where businesses will be contributing a relatively large proportion of that project, they will have the power vote on whether they make that contribution. If business votes against, the BRS will not happen. However, when businesses will contribute a smaller, although important, element towards the costs of a project, a judgment should be made locally on whether a ballot is appropriate. That is proportionate and reasonable, given that BRS revenues will contribute the lion's share of a project's funding in some cases, but a relatively small proportion in others.
	Requiring a ballot, even in cases in which the supplement is funding a relatively small proportion of a project, potentially places undue emphasis on one aspect of a project. For example, a levying authority might propose to fund 10 per cent. of a project through a BRS. If the authority engaged with businesses at an early stage about the proposed project and business rate supplement and secured their support, and if that was then borne out through consultation, it would make no logical sense to require the authority to go through the process of holding a ballot.
	It should be made clear that a ballot will not be a quick or cheap process. There should be no need for a ballot on a short-term business rate supplement that will fund a relatively small proportion of a project supported by business. The expense would be disproportionate, and in some cases simply could not be justified. That could result in a totally artificial discouragement to levying authorities to use BRSs in cases in which doing so would make a real and positive difference to an area.

Sarah McCarthy-Fry: I will ascertain from my right hon. Friend's office when a response will be forthcoming, but I am sure that today's debate will constitute an element of that response.
	We do not want to limit the BRS as really only an attractive option for use as the sole funding mechanism for a project. That limits levying authorities in terms of the amount of revenue they can raise, and means that the BRS cannot be used in conjunction with other funding streams to fund larger, more ambitious projects aimed at promoting local economies.
	The effect will be particularly pronounced outside London. Properties in the London typically have higher rateable values than those outside the capital. Under the current proposals, properties in England with a rateable value of £50,000 will be exempt from paying the BRS. That threshold will exclude a higher proportion of properties from paying the supplement outside London than in the capital, which means that outside London there is an increased likelihood that the BRS will form part of a wider funding package. Therefore, the difficulty created by the ballot in cases in which the supplement will form part of a wider funding package will be more pronounced outside the capital. That makes the BRS less attractive as a funding mechanism to promote economic development outside London.
	In requiring a ballot in certain circumstances, the White Paper and the Bill go significantly further than either the Lyons review or the Communities and Local Government Committee. Both recommended that the decision to hold a ballot should be left to the levying authority.
	For the reasons that I have just given, we do not think that a ballot should be required in all cases. We consider that it should be required only in cases in which the supplement will fund more than one third of the total projected costs. However, because Members in both Houses have expressed real concern that there should be genuine engagement of local businesses before a supplement is introduced, we propose that in cases in which a ballot is not required by virtue of the fact that the supplement is expected to fund less than one third of the total cost of the project, the authority should be required to set out the BRS prospectus whether or not it intends to hold a ballot, and—importantly—to explain why it proposes that course of action.
	I want to make it absolutely clear that the Government do not consider that a ballot should always be held. The amendment requires authorities to state why they think a ballot should, or should not, be held. It does not ask them to justify their decision only if they decide not to hold a ballot; there is not, as such, a presumption of a ballot. For instance, the BRS might be used to fund a small proportion of a project over a short period such as six to 12 months. In such cases, the costs of running a ballot might be considered to be disproportionate, given the contribution that would be made by the supplement. If an authority wanted to hold a ballot in such cases, taxpayers, including local businesses, would justifiably be interested in its reasoning.
	The amendment provides important transparency in the decision-making process relating to ballots. We think it right for levying authorities to have discretion on whether to hold a ballot when the supplement is expected to fund less than one third of the total cost of the project. However, we acknowledge that the decision-making process must be transparent to those who will ultimately be liable for the supplement. The amendment will give businesses confidence that the decision-making process on ballots will be made clear. It allows levying authorities flexibility to do the right thing by their communities while ensuring that local businesses understand why the authority has taken a particular course of action.
	For those reasons, I invite this House to disagree with the Lords amendments, and commend the Government's amendment is lieu to the House.

Bob Neill: This is the first time that I have had the pleasure of doing business on local government issues with the Minister. As a member of a shadow team that has been in place a little longer than the Government team, I welcome her to her new post, and look forward to doing further business in the future.
	I am sorry that we will have to start on a note of disagreement, but such is life. The Minister has set out much the same arguments in resisting the Lords amendments as Government spokesmen used in the other place. Their lordships were not convinced, and with every respect to the Minister's persuasive skills, I have to say that I am not either.
	The key issue is that if the BRS is to be successful, it has to have wholehearted buy-in from, and the consent of, the business community, otherwise it will not achieve the stated objectives. It is well known—I repeat this point merely for the record, without elaborating on it—that the official Opposition would not have introduced a BRS at this time in an economic cycle, in the midst of a recession; the only exception in our case was in relation to the Crossrail project. That point has been well rehearsed and well debated, but I mention it to set the context. At a time when businesses are under more pressure than ever, the introduction of BRS—and without a ballot—would in our judgment be an unjustified and unduly onerous imposition on them. Businesses are already struggling; they are finding cash flow ever more difficult, and the costs of borrowing money to meet cash flow and other requirements are ever higher.
	It is also important to remember that their lordships rightly debated this change not in isolation, but in the context of BRS together with other potential burdens on businesses. If we add in the cumulative burdens of a revaluation of the standard, ordinary business rate, never mind the BRS, and the possibility of extra parking charges and other levies, we see that there is a danger of the straw breaking the camel's back. That is why it seems to us that if there are to be BRS projects, it is only right and fair that businesses should have a chance to vote on that; otherwise, they will be caught in the invidious position of having a form of taxation without representation.
	We will in due course move on to discuss amendments in relation to what are called joint BRS-BID levies. The only reason why I mention that at this stage is to own to being a convert to BIDs. I was sceptical about them when they were first introduced, but I am now persuaded that they can be very successful. There is a key difference, however, in that for BIDs there is always a ballot of the businesses that are going to participate. That is an important lock in terms of both accountability and improving the scheme. That is not just the view of politicians. When the Bill was previously before this House, the Committee conducted some useful pre-legislative scrutiny evidence sessions. The evidence from the various business organisations was overwhelmingly to the effect that, whatever their views about introducing a BRS scheme at this stage in a recession, if there was to be added value it was crucial that there should be a mandatory ballot.
	That point was made by a number of highly experienced Lords in the other place, and it has been reinforced by the CBI very recently. I previously asked the Minister about a letter from Richard Lambert, the director general of the CBI, to the new Secretary of State. In the context of the amendments, Richard Lambert states:
	"You will not be surprised to hear that the CBI welcomes these changes. In 2007 the six hundred businesses that make up the CBI's nine English regional councils agreed that CBI should support the principle of business rate supplements."
	They are not coming at that from a Conservative party political point of view; I disagree with them on that particular issue of principle. The letter goes on to state, however:
	"They felt that if there is a need for new local infrastructure businesses should be able to contribute, where they see real value. However, there was overwhelming belief that this would only be acceptable if businesses had the safeguard of a mandatory ballot. This would ensure that supplements were affordable and only used for projects that would genuinely stimulate local economic activity."
	In relation to the Lords amendments that we are debating, the letter states:
	"In its amended form the Bill provides far more certainty for businesses about their long-term rate liabilities, whilst still enabling local authorities and business to work together to fund and deliver new infrastructure projects. In the current recessionary climate such improved certainty is absolutely essential. Government now has a real opportunity to demonstrate its commitment to helping businesses by allowing the changes voted through in the House of Lords to remain a part of the Bill".
	I could not have put it any better. That is a persuasive case from the CBI, representing thousands of businesses, and it looks as if the Government are persistently turning a deaf ear to those arguments.
	Certainty certainly relates to funding streams, but there must also be certainty for the businesses that are going to have to pay. The limit of 30 per cent. is in every respect an arbitrary one, because a question not just of the percentage that is funded, but of the amount that will fall to be paid by individual businesses. As has rightly been said, the nature of BRS schemes can vary. Some will be large, and some small, but as the Minister interestingly, and I suspect correctly, said, many involve significant capital expenditure. Even 20 per cent. of a very large scheme is a significant potential burden on businesses at a time when they can ill afford such cost burdens. That point appears to be missed.
	I am sorry to have to say that the Government are also unwilling to seek greater business involvement. On Report in this House, there was a great deal of discussion about the possibility not only of having a safeguard for businesses through the mandatory ballot, but of mechanisms to ensure their greater participation in the development and ongoing oversight of BRS schemes. Ministers—previous Ministers, I hasten to add—uttered warm words about that. They said they would look at it, but nothing has emerged. I hope it may yet do so, but that does not give us much confidence that the Minister's words about wanting to encourage participation between local government and business are actually going to be met with action.
	That is a profoundly disappointing stance for the Government to take, so it is important to set in place greater certainty for business than the Lyons review set out, precisely because of the potential impacts on business. If a package had been developed that gave businesses greater safeguards, perhaps their lordships would have come to a different conclusion, but it has not been developed, and given the history of how this matter has been debated—we will come on to another piece of history in respect of a later group of amendments—I do not have confidence that warm words will be met with action.
	Against that background, I am sorry to have to say that we have to maintain that the Government have misjudged the mood and misread the evidence, and that if they disagree with the Lords they will make the Bill worse than when it came back to this House from the other place. That will be a missed opportunity and a great let-down, and it will send precisely the wrong signals to businesses in this country at the current time.

Sarah McCarthy-Fry: Nevertheless, the fact remains that he takes a totally different view from a fellow Liberal Democrat. Indeed, the LGA does not stop at not wanting a ballot. It also wants to raise the limit to 4p and for local authorities to have a free hand to decide what to spend the money on. The Select Committee also said that we should leave ballots to the discretion of local authorities.
	The amendment in lieu creates the right balance. It would require a ballot if the contribution were more than 33.3 per cent., and introduce the additional safeguard that the local authority will have to set out in the prospectus its reasons to hold, or not hold, a ballot.

Sarah McCarthy-Fry: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
	On Lords amendments 11 and 12, I commend the quality of the debate in the other place. Forceful arguments were made as to why backdated rating list changes should not apply in relation to BRS liability. Lord Bates set out his view that the amendments
	"are designed to provide an important guarantee to avoid retrospection in business rate supplements taxation".—[ Official Report, House of Lords, 9 June 2009; Vol. 711, c. 550.]
	He felt strongly about that matter. The noble Lords Tope, Williamson and Brooke and Earl Attlee and Earl Cathcart all spoke eloquently and persuasively in his support. However, I reiterate that the Bill relates to the BRS. For the reasons that I have already mentioned, which were set out by Lord Davies in another place, I do not agree with principle of the guarantee described by Lord Bates.
	It is right and fair that the system that applies to rating should apply to the BRS. Maintaining an accurate rating list necessarily involves an element of backdating, as properties must be valued when they are complete or nearly complete to ensure proper valuation. We cannot have a system in which a person avoids paying rates or the BRS for a time, whereas someone else in analogous circumstances cannot, because of the coincidence of when a valuation can be undertaken in practice. That would be unfair and irresponsible, so it is right that changes to rating lists take effect from the date of the event giving rise to the change. The provisions in the Bill were crafted to be entirely consistent with the national business rate system. That ensures that liability to business rate supplements will be fair to all.

Bob Neill: The right hon. Gentleman is characteristically perceptive and well informed, and he is right. I am sorry if I am being less combative than I sometimes am—I thought that I was being reasonably vigorous—but the reason we regard Lords amendment 11 as so important is because of a desire to prevent a great injustice and because the feeling is so strong. The Government's deafness is such that it makes those on the Guardian Council in Tehran look like flexible and open-minded people. People are shouting and hollering to try to bring an injustice to the Government's attention, and the Government just say, "Sorry, nothing to do with us." At the end of the day, that is just unfair.
	That is why it is right that Lords amendment 11 should be maintained. It is also why the amendment was passed in the other place not by a small margin, but by a majority of 60. In terms of votes in the other place, that is a very significant margin indeed. It is interesting that the record of proceedings and votes in the other place shows that a number of Labour peers who supported other aspects of the Bill felt unable to vote in the Lobby against Lords amendment 11. They knew that justice was on the side of the amendment. I wish that that message would get through to the Government down here.

David Heath: I warmly welcome the hon. Gentleman to his new responsibilities. [Hon. Members: "Hear, hear!"] He will hear that the whole House echoes that welcome.
	I also greatly welcome the Bill. On microgeneration, has the hon. Gentleman given any further thought to the definition of hydropower, which is still an outstanding issue? The Bill is a potential vehicle to put right an anomaly that is preventing people from investing in micro hydropower. During his very short time in the Department, has he given any thought to rectifying that anomaly?

Gregory Barker: We on the Conservative Benches warmly welcome the fact that the Government support the Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr. Ainsworth), the Green Energy (Definition and Promotion) Bill. We have a clear vision of a distributed energy economy, and microgeneration will be essential to that. My hon. Friend has a formidable record of promoting pragmatic green causes such as this, and we look forward to the Bill making its swift and positive way through Committee.

Andrew George: I am delighted to have secured the debate, but I am sorry that the Minister whom I understood to be responding is not yet in his place—doubtless that will be put right shortly. The subject of the debate is important.  [ Interruption. ] I am pleased that the Minister is now in his place and I welcome him to his new position.
	The subject has significance beyond the geographical designation in the title of the debate. Many places other than Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly experience similar problems in that they suffer significant health inequalities in comparison with the national average and deprivation in terms of the population's income profile. The geography of a peninsula also presents problems, and I believe that Cornwall and the Scilly Isles are further from target than anywhere else in the country, in the Government's view.
	We are grateful to the Government for ensuring that the Advisory Committee on Resource Allocation studied, over several years, every aspect of the NHS formula for the allocation and weighted capitation of funding to every primary care trust in the country. Consequently, there is a welcome uplift in the funding for Cornwall and other places. However, although Cornwall will receive a 12.4 per cent. increase as a result of the acknowledgement that it is significantly more underfunded than the Government recognised previously, it will still be 6.2 per cent. below target at the end of the current two-year cycle of NHS funding. That is as far as the Government will allow any PCT to be by that stage—the end of March 2011. Although the increase is welcome, it raises issues about which the Minister must, I am sure, be aware.
	It is probably also worth pointing out that the problem has not arisen overnight. I have already congratulated the Government on ensuring that the Advisory Committee on Resource Allocation undertook a thorough review. However, Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly NHS services have long suffered from the underfunding arising from the funding formula that the Conservative Government originally introduced. It has taken such a long time to get around to addressing that underfunding, which has affected the poorest region in the UK.
	As the Minister would expect, all the Cornwall Members of Parliament have campaigned for many years to ensure, first, that there would be a review and, secondly that it would be robust and thorough. It acknowledged that the revised formula should be introduced at the beginning of the financial year. However, that leaves Cornwall with funding, which is £56.5 million below what the Government have identified should be its allocation.
	In preparing for this debate I looked at the funding for other parts of the country. To be fair, there are areas in Norfolk, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Lincolnshire where funding is 6.2 per cent. below the target, but where it is also marginally above Cornwall's gross level of underfunding, because of the size of the PCTs by which those areas are served.

Andrew George: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that point. She has been a champion for the NHS in Cornwall. It is as a result of the teamwork among Cornish MPs, in bringing the case to the Government and ensuring that the message is heard loud and clear, that we have made so much progress, although we obviously still have a great deal of progress to make.
	The figure of £56.5 million for underfunding in the financial year 2010-11 stands in contrast with the position in 2006, when the Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust was placed in special measures, after it was discovered to be more than £15 million in deficit. That figure for debt changed rapidly to £32 million, as a result of the resource account budgeting system, which the Treasury insists that Departments put in place, and, later that year, to £57 million, as a result of an estimate of the commitments that the trust had already made.
	We are still awaiting a review this year of where the trust is now. We are reassured by the messages from the trust that it not only is in recurring balance, but is doing its best to retrieve the situation financially. However, as my hon. Friend rightly pointed out, there is the question how a trust can get itself into such a position of underfunding when the Government and their advisory committee have acknowledged that for all these years—one might argue for at least the last decade, because that is how long we have been campaigning to get the formula changed—we have been underfunded by the equivalent of the debt that, under its worst interpretation, the trust has faced. That is a significant issue.
	In 2006, when the trust's debt was first identified, it was placed in special measures and given support from the Department of Health. The chief executive resigned and initially—certainly in the first year—the trust went through a period of what I would describe as panic-laden decision taking to try to recover the financial situation as quickly as it could. Since then, the trust, under the Department's close guidance, has had a turnover of five chief executives and five chairmen.
	I am not prepared to comment on individual cases, but since the fact that the trust faced serious financial problems was first identified, issues have arisen that are clearly not the responsibility of the local community. One of the themes that I want to draw out from this evening's debate is the importance of establishing a system of NHS delivery in local communities that is far more accountable to those communities than has hitherto been the case in Cornwall and the rest of the country.
	I know that Ministers use the language of encouraging greater localism and greater local decision making on the priorities relating to the allocation and spending of NHS resources, but in Cornwall, we have experienced the serious problem of too much micro-management from Richmond House and, arguably, from the strategic health authority. That has clearly not contributed to a calm situation that would allow the kind of decision making that Cornwall has needed over the period in question.

Andrew George: The Minister is certainly listening, and nodding at some of these points. I do not know whether he is in partial agreement, or whether he at least agrees with the sentiments being expressed. Perhaps there is a potential for finding some common ground on the points that we are raising.
	I took part in a debate on these issues on 18 March 2009 with the Minister's predecessor, the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Bradshaw), who is now the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. The broad issue of the allocation formula was debated at that time. The Minister said that the formula
	"is made up of a count of the population served by the PCT, with adjustments made to reflect factors such as the age of the population, the level of deprivation, unavoidable differences in costs, which are known as the market forces factor, and rurality."—[ Official Report, 18 March 2009; Vol. 489, c. 285WH.]
	One of the big issues for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly is the impact of the market forces factor on the allocation of funding. That element of the funding formula seems to suggest that, because wage levels are low in Cornwall, we deserve less money. The argument seems to be that, because the market circumstances are somewhat lower, we deserve less funding. I was pleased that, as a result of the academic study by the consultant body, that issue was reviewed and put right.
	Many in our communities feel that the Government should move much more quickly to allow PCTs that are below target to move more rapidly to meet their target. The response of the right hon. Member for Exeter was that
	"moving faster over the next two years would result in painful cuts to services".—[ Official Report, 18 March 2009; Vol. 489, c. 286WH.]
	He went on to identify a number of PCTs, mostly in London and the south-east, with allocations over target, whose resources would be cut over a period, resulting in painful decisions having to be made. I sympathise, and if I were the MP representing those areas, I would argue strongly that those changes should not be made—or at least not in a precipitate way that might undermine services. That option might not necessarily need to be taken.
	In the chief executive of the local PCT in Cornwall, Ann James, the Minister has a very loyal advocate for the Government and the Department. In preparing for this debate, I asked for her opinion on our distance from target and on the impact of Cornwall's underfunding on the ability of the local NHS to ensure that services were adequate. She told me that the local PCT, even at this distance from target, had been able to make tremendous advances in health care. She said that it had received more than £400 million of extra funding over the past four years; £2.5 million had been invested in NHS dentistry, resulting in a cut in waiting lists; £1.6 million had been invested in maternity services; and a new GP-led health centre was being built in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Julia Goldsworthy). Ann James also mentioned further investment in a number of other services in Cornwall, which I shall come to in a few moments.
	The Minister should recognise that this is not just special pleading on behalf of Cornwall, as there is a reasonable case to be heard. Simply saying that funding for areas that are clearly suffering from underfunding cannot be raised because of the potential impact on other areas is not good enough. The Government have been able to sink substantial amounts into an IT project, including the choose and book system, at a cost of £12.4 billion. Another example is the £150 million spent on the roll-out of what some people call the "super-surgeries" as alternative providers of medical services—or "polyclinics", as some prefer to call them, although I know that the Minister's Department does not like that term and calls them something different.
	Local PCTs have had to deliver in their own areas a number of centrally driven or centrally funded top-down initiatives. Whether such decisions relate to independent treatment centres or the other projects I have mentioned, my argument is that they would be far better taken in communities such as Cornwall, where the services that people are concerned about might be enhanced—and more effectively than by the initiatives from Richmond house. There is scope for argument there, and I suspect that the Minister will disagree, but the matter needs to be considered.
	The impact of underfunding on services is very clear. It leads to pressures on staffing levels in acute services. As I witnessed myself, that can be dangerous. Staff levels on some wards really need to be looked at. I was fortunate a couple of years ago to have the opportunity to shadow nurses on four wards at the Royal Cornwall hospital in Truro and the West Cornwall hospital in my own constituency. I was seriously concerned about staffing levels, and particularly about the ratio of staff to the acuteness of the cases that needed to be dealt with. I was also concerned about bureaucracy, form filling and targets, which staff had to chase up at the same time. There were a number of issues of concern.
	West Cornwall, a very small hospital in my constituency about which the local community rightly feel extremely passionate, has experienced a rollercoaster of emotions in recent years as a result of panic-laden decision making. Uncertainty and anxiety about the true future of the hospital and the services available to local patients have been a predominant theme. As I said, the trust has undergone a large number of changes of chief executives and chairmen, and is still struggling to recover from decisions that were made only a couple of years ago.
	Cornwall has one of the most threadbare NHS dentistry services in the country. I was privileged to be able to invite the chairman of the independent review body, Professor Jimmy Steele, to see what was going on in Cornwall back in February, in the early days of his inquiry. He told me this week that his report would be published next week, and we look forward to reading it.
	Most adults in Cornwall simply assume that they will never be able to get on to an NHS dentist's list—at least, I was going to refer to such a list, but obviously people do not register with NHS dentists nowadays. It is incredibly difficult to arrange to be seen by an NHS dentist. It is not just a question of access, although on a long, thin peninsula there are no alternatives in the form of other PCTs or health services, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Falmouth and Camborne knows, the further west one goes the worse the position is. There is also the perpetual uncertainty. We can be pretty sure that for every new NHS dentist whose arrival in one of the towns in my constituency is trumpeted, another will jettison NHS patients or go private within months, if not weeks, because of the pressure that dentists feel that they are under.

Andrew George: I certainly think that that is true, but I must also say that there are geographical differences across the country as a whole. The Government measure, and the means by which they pay for these services, is the average units of dental activity. On that measure, NHS provision per head of population in Cornwall is about half the national average. Professor Steele has been looking at this issue, and I am told that provision is significantly better in some parts of the country than in Cornwall. In west Cornwall, the situation is that about one third of the population can get some access to NHS dentistry, and emergency access is even more difficult.
	Professor Steele tells me that the unique geography of Cornwall makes it particularly hard to get services in the right place, and when they are not in the right place, travel is, of course, difficult and expensive. Even if the combination of rurality and poverty does not make Cornwall unique, it certainly makes it a very good example of the problems that there can be in delivering services. We in Cornwall hope that, as a result of the review, the review board will come up with proposals that acknowledge the geographically specific problems in some parts of the country, and that it will perhaps even encourage the Government to review again the basis of the funding formula—the allocation and notional level of funding that is available to places such as Cornwall to ensure that they do in fact have adequate provision of dental services.
	Midwifery and maternity services in west Cornwall are another subject on which I would welcome the Minister's encouragement. I shall shortly be seeing a group of community midwives in my constituency. They tell me that their complement of midwives in the towns of Helston, St. Ives, Penzance and Hayle in west Cornwall is significantly below the Government's recommended level. That puts pressure on services and on what they can provide in terms of the whole-time equivalent assessment of the population they serve and their work load and its throughput.
	I secured a debate on the Government's policy as set out in "Maternity Matters" on 2 May 2007, when I welcomed its principles, but I also asked whether the Government had put the resources in place to ensure that their fine words could be met with action on the ground, so that mothers would have choices in the years ahead. That is clearly not the case in west Cornwall—and I am told that west Cornwall has better midwifery provision than many other communities.
	Funding issues underlie all the concerns that I have raised. Services cannot be provided if the funding is not in place, and certainly if there has been a decade or more of considerable underfunding. In contrast with other parts of the country, as a result of its allocation, Cornwall has struggled year on year under the weight of national expectations and as a consequence of patients being aware of national levels of service. I congratulate the Government on their funding in general. Indeed, the Liberal Democrats have always welcomed the funding that the Government have been prepared to put into the NHS across the country, but the allocation has simply left places such as Cornwall behind, year on year, and therefore further behind overall, thus denuding and undermining services and making it increasingly difficult for the professionals who are providing those services to maintain them.
	My other theme, which I very much hope the Minister will take on board in his reply, is that we need to provide a structure that not only allows the local community have a say through the occasional consultation paper exercise, but genuinely allows locally elected representatives to determine the priorities and champion the interests of their local communities. Many of the decisions taken by the primary care trust are not only technical and medical, but political; they are about the allocation of resources in an area and the implementation of Government policy. We need to decide whether such bodies are simply agents of central Government and the local community is simply something that is occasionally consulted, or whether such bodies are there to reflect the interests and priorities of that local community and to ensure that it is fully engaged in the decision-making process.

Several hon. Members: rose —

Madam Deputy Speaker: I call Julia Goldsworthy.

Andrew George: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way a second time. This is a rather classic example of the Government's imposing a solution that might be satisfactory in an urban setting but that is still an urban solution to a long-standing rural problem. Cornwall, from the Tamar to the Isles of Scilly, is more than 100 miles long. We have to question whether alternative provider medical services will provide for the whole of Cornwall. The PCT has not been able to show that those services will not undermine the settled provision of existing services in a way that damages the local community or that the benefit of the investment will be spread for benefit of the whole population served by the PCT.

Daniel Rogerson: May I apologise to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, to my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives (Andrew George) and to the House for not being in the Chamber at the beginning of his speech? I was involved in the debate on the Business Rate Supplements Bill and took the opportunity to leave the Chamber for a short while, anticipating that the next debate might continue for longer than it did. I am pleased that you found time to call me to speak, however, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I thank you for that.
	I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate, and it is fortuitous for Cornwall that he did so as we have the opportunity to debate matters in more detail than we might have anticipated. He addressed clearly the underlying funding issues in Cornwall and focused on some of the problems that have occurred, sadly, in the management of the Royal Cornwall hospital in Treliske. Of course, in turn that has caused problems for the acute trust, but it is also important to note that the deal that has been worked out to allow the PCT to support the acute trust as it gets its finances back on track has longer term implications for resources across Cornwall.
	Many of my constituents in the western part of north Cornwall use the Royal Cornwall hospital at Treliske and are very pleased with the service there, but people in the east of my constituency tend to go to Derriford hospital in Plymouth, the Royal Devon and Exeter hospital or the North Devon district hospital at Barnstaple. The question is whether the necessary support for the provision of acute services in Truro is drawing resources away from the more accessible services over the border in Devon.
	If we were starting with a blank sheet of paper to plan for health investment in Cornwall, we would probably not begin by placing a major district general hospital in the middle of the county. We might put one in both the west and the east, but that is not how things are. Many patients in the east of Cornwall cross the border into Devon for their health services; not only does that pose transport problems, as I shall explain, but it also causes peak-time car parking difficulties at Derriford. The fact that services are concentrated there—it is one of the largest hospitals in western Europe—may need to be examined in future.
	My hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives mentioned the problems encountered by people living some distance away from major health care centres such as the Royal Cornwall hospital. A while ago, I came across a case involving an older lady in Camelford in my constituency. Having been prescribed a course of therapy in Truro, she turned to the hospital transport system to get herself there, but the cost became so prohibitive that she decided to abandon the therapy. Although her illness was not life threatening, it was enough to affect her quality of life. The therapy had been recommended by health professionals: they said that it would benefit her, and it was something to which she was entitled on the NHS. The only thing that prevented her from taking advantage of the therapy was the fact of where she lived.
	A truly national health service must reach into every community in the country. Those of us who live in rural areas know that, unlike those who live in urban areas, we cannot have all services right on our doorstep. There are other compensations about living in a rural environment that people come to Cornwall—or stay there—to enjoy. However, there is a baseline of provision in all public services that people ought to be able to expect, and health is no exception to that. For that reason, I would welcome anything that the Minister is able to say about hospital transport.
	Hospital transport services come under threat when fuel costs rise. Drivers get some money to provide those services, but in effect they end up subsidising them when mileage allowances do not properly reflect the costs that they incur. That problem eased when fuel prices fell recently, but it could return as they creep back up again.
	In the past, Health Ministers have said that the problem relating to car parking provision needs to be addressed, as the NHS cannot be in the business of providing subsidised car parking. They have added that people need to accept that there is a cost to visiting hospitals, but that is all very well where there is a public transport alternative. In many areas, however, there is no such alternative to car use.
	The problem is most acute for older people. So many young people have left Cornwall that the county has an ageing population, and that problem is predicted to get worse. Many older people would prefer not to be forced to use their car to travel the large distances involved in accessing health services, but that is what they have to do.
	At the meetings that I have had with PCT representatives, they have said that they are keen to work with the acute trust and consider providing more community hospitals. That, of course, is something to be welcomed. There are many clinics, and there has been wider provision in some areas, but a lot more remains to be done on that. If the NHS were able to concentrate, in rural areas, on trying to widen the range of services available in our excellent community hospitals, that would make a great contribution to overcoming the problem of access; transport seems to be proving a barrier.

Daniel Rogerson: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is fair to say that different trusts have taken different views. For example, the Plymouth Hospitals NHS Trust, which covers Derriford hospital, has recently undertaken a review, and has introduced much cheaper shorter-stay parking for visitors, which I welcome. The trust consulted widely before doing that. Unfortunately, probably because of the financial pressures that we have discussed, in Truro the situation is different. I do not want to drag the Minister too far into the specifics, but the barrier system introduced there means that people who are visiting for a long period, such as those who are visiting a sick child in the hospital, may pay for 24 hours of parking; however, if they leave the car park, going past the barrier, during the day and come back in the evening, they have to get a new ticket to get back in, although they have paid for 24 hours. That really adds to people's costs, and if anything can be done to look into that, it should be done.
	We have heard a little bit from my hon. Friends the Members for St. Ives, and for Falmouth and Camborne (Julia Goldsworthy), about the issues relating to the new health care provision that is to be allocated to the Falmouth and Camborne constituency. The model is a walk-in surgery for harder-to-access groups. Of course there are issues to address; we have migrant workers in Cornwall, and anything that can be done to make sure that we have adequate provision for everybody is all to the good. However, that proposal will divert resources into setting up a facility that, as my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives said, is really aimed at an urban area. There may well be a solution that would have worked better in a rural area.
	My constituents in Bude-Stratton and Camelford have been waiting for a long time to get decent medical centres in their area. Bude-Stratton is one of the most remote towns in Cornwall. It has been pretty near the top of the list for a new medical centre for a while. It has outgrown its older premises, and campaigners in the area, such as Mrs. Candy Baker, have long fought to make sure that the primary care trust is aware of that. It is below Camelford on the list, and I have arranged a meeting, to be held in a few weeks' time, at which representatives from the local improvement finance trust company—Community 1st Cornwall—community groups and, I hope, the PCT will come together to talk about that situation. However, we have done that before, and we are not that much further forward. Of course, in those communities, there may be land and planning issues that delay matters, but the resources that are being put into the sort of centre that my hon. Friend the Member for Falmouth and Camborne spoke about may well have helped to overcome some of the problems, and might have taken us further forward in terms of health care provision.
	My hon. Friends the Members for St. Ives, and for Falmouth and Camborne have raised crucial issues about accountability, which is not just about people having confidence in the system as a whole, but about their being able to influence where those resources are used and how they are spent locally. My hon. Friend the Member for Falmouth and Camborne and I are on the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill Committee, which has had great discussions about the use of petitions. Upper gastrointestinal surgery, to which both hon. Friends have referred, is an example of an issue on which people are petitioning anyone whom they can think of, because they are not quite sure where the accountability lies. Despite having gone through the processes, and having become far greater experts on health funding than many hon. Members in this House—campaigners become experts during the course of their campaign—those campaigners will probably feel that they do not have the influence over decisions that they would like. That is a problem for us all.
	My hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives mentioned midwifery services. The situation is exactly the same in North Cornwall. As the father of three children under the age of five, all of whom were born, by Caesarean section, in the Royal Cornwall hospital in Truro, I am well familiar with the services, and the excellent work that the staff there do. However, looking at the period covering those three deliveries, I have to say that I have noticed that the staff are perhaps a little more stretched than they were when my eldest son was born in 2004.
	Community midwifery services have played a fantastic role. Arwen Folkes has driven forward the "real baby milk" campaign in Cornwall, and I think that it is being rolled out in other trusts across the country. She very much welcomes the opportunity to work alongside midwives to provide that service. Sure Start benefited in North Cornwall from having a midwifery service, but it has had to be withdrawn because of the overstretch in midwifery. I hope that that issue can be resolved.
	Finally, I refer to mental health. We could spend a whole evening discussing that. The Cornwall Partnership Trust has had to deal with problems relating to learning disability, but it is now moving beyond them. I have had the privilege of seeing a number of new facilities that it has opened, which is good, but the community services in particular are extremely overstretched. The fundamental problem is that resources have had to go into the Royal Cornwall hospital at Treliske. Until the financial situation is resolved, the partnership trust will not be able to deliver the sort of community mental health services that we would like to see.

Andrew George: I am very grateful to the Minister for giving way. I think that I acknowledged in my opening remarks much of what he has said. I have two questions. First, he said that the PCTs were taking the relevant decisions, and he described that as in some way local. However, those people are appointed indirectly by the Government and are not accountable to the local community, so I should welcome his thoughts on whether Cornwall might be one of the pilot areas where more local decision-making takes place.
	Secondly, on the formula itself, I acknowledge that Cornwall's allocation is going up not by 11.3 per cent. but by 12.4 per cent., which is clearly welcome and above the national average. However, it is only a small degree above, and the county will take years to get even close to its target. Does the Minister not agree that some of those national programmes, such as the alternative provider medical services roll-out, the independent treatment centres and so on, involve decisions that would be far better taken in the local community by local people, and that it would be far better to apportion that money in order to move PCTs much more quickly towards their target?

Andrew George: I am not begrudging the increases that the Minister has just mentioned; indeed, I welcomed them in my opening remarks. However, the proportion of funding available to Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly is still significantly distant—6.2 per cent.—from its ultimate target. The acute trust is clearly not just in a recurring balance; it is also paying back some of the historic debt. He may argue that the situation is due to past mismanagement—not that local communities made the decisions—but the fact is that Cornwall has been chronically underfunded in comparison with the rest of the country, and that is clearly the primary cause of the pressure on mental health, dentistry and other services there. It would be helpful if he acknowledged that that is a likely outcome of a long period of historic relative underfunding.

Mike O'Brien: I cannot give the hon. Gentleman a precise period. Assuming that we stay in office and the other lot do not get in—sadly for him, I am not talking about his lot—we will steadily increase NHS funding. We all know about the issues in relation to the wider political debate and the fact that the main Opposition party does not have a good record on the NHS, so it depends to some extent on what happens in the future. However, we are committed to moving towards the targets. We accept the funding formula that has been agreed, and as a result, over a period of time, Cornwall will steadily benefit from those changes.
	The hon. Gentleman raised several other issues apart from finance, including dentistry and midwifery. On midwifery, Cornwall and Isles of Scilly PCT has invested an extra £1.6 million in maternity services in the three years from 2008-09. Women in Cornwall ought to have the choice as to where they have their baby, whether at a midwifery-led unit or at home, and in the years ahead we want to ensure that they do have that choice. He says that it is not always available, but in my experience that is sometimes because people have not been informed or simply do not know that they have a degree of choice about where they can give birth. There is a real need for better information and better engagement with local communities. We need to ensure that PCTs are out there telling people about the choices that they can have. Sometimes those choices are not exercised for the convenience of the system—because it is easier, safer and so on to have children in hospitals, or so some think. Choice should be given to women, and it is important that it is available and publicised.
	As for dentistry, people in Cornwall are still unable to access an NHS dentist as quickly as they would like. The latest figures show that Cornwall and Isles of Scilly PCT saw fewer patients in the past two years than the national average. I can see that there is an issue in that regard, because that represents 51 per cent. of the population as against 53 per cent for England as a whole. The PCT knows that access to NHS dentistry is an important issue for it. In 2007, it produced an oral health strategy, and it is working to further grow its services and to promote oral health. We can already see the difference being made. In March 2008, the PCT had 1,800 patients waiting for an NHS dentist; now, there are only 160 patients. That is 160 too many, but progress is being made.
	The PCT is committed to making sure that everyone who wants NHS treatment is able to get it, and its current and future plans will provide services for around 33,800 additional patients. The PCT has received an additional £2.5 million—an 11 per cent increase—in its dental allocation. That is a pretty good increase. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that we are looking forward to the report of Professor Jimmy Steele in the not-too-distant future. I hope that as a result of that we will see even further improvements in how dentistry is dealt with.
	Recent new dentistry investments include the appointment of three new dentists in Truro and one in Falmouth in July and August 2008, and the opening of a new practice in Launceston with capacity for 5,000 patients in February 2009. March saw another tranche of new practices opened, providing services for 7,000 new patients in Newquay, 2,000 in Bodmin and 4,500 in Torpoint. In April, a new practice opened in St. Austell with capacity for 7,000 patients. I understand that it will be officially opened by the chief dental officer, Barry Cockcroft, later this month. The PCT is continuing that programme of expansion, and over the next 12 months it will provide dental services for an additional 8,160 patients across Liskeard, Tregony, St. Ives, Bodmin, Threemilestone and Truro. That represents a fair amount of work and investment being put into the area.
	The hon. Member for North Cornwall made a couple of points that I wish to engage him on. The first was about hospital transport, and he was absolutely right about rural areas. I represent an area that has a large rural hinterland, and it is enormously important that people can get access to transport to a hospital. We need to work harder to ensure that PCTs recognise the importance of ensuring that transport arrangements are in place, particularly when services are located in tertiary and high-skill hospitals, as is often safer. The distance involved needs to be taken into account to ensure that we do not increase risk. It is all very well to say that a patient is safer when they get to such a hospital, but getting them there is also a problem, particularly if access to transport is not easy. It is important that PCTs recognise that they need to take serious account of transport in rural areas.
	The hon. Gentleman also mentioned car parking, and he made the fair point that patients and primarily visitors complain that they have to pay for parking when they go to a hospital. They ask, "Isn't this supposed to be a free NHS?" I, too, have had constituents come and complain to me, asking, "Why are we paying for car park charges in the local hospital?" As he said, they get very annoyed, particularly if they are making long visits, perhaps to a child who has to stay in for a long time.
	The hon. Gentleman's point was fair, and there is a reasonable debate to be had about the matter, but I would respond that there is still a choice to be made on budgets. He and others have talked about budget limitations, and there will always be such limitations. We all know that NHS inflation is a particular problem in relation to the costs of medicine. There will therefore always be pressures on NHS budgets, despite the fact that we have tripled the amount of money going in.
	There will always be decisions to be made, and it is important that they are made locally. PCTs must recognise that there is a choice, and that they are better off spending money on patient care than on car parks. There is a high cost to car parks through building, maintenance, servicing, safeguarding, insurance and so on. In principle, it is better that the funding goes to patient care. However, there is always a balance to be struck, and the costs that visitors and patients pay should be reasonable, with account taken of the pressures on people who have to go to hospitals regularly. The charging of very large sums to people who have to visit on a daily basis for a prolonged period because oftheir circumstances is often unfair. PCTs have to examine that in the context of the pressures on a local hospital.